


In These Eyes

by skysedge



Category: Granblue Fantasy (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, M/M, Retelling, Self-Esteem Issues, Spoilers for What Makes The Sky Blue I, Torture, Unrequited Love, Unresolved Emotional Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-18
Updated: 2018-06-18
Packaged: 2019-05-25 01:41:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14966381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skysedge/pseuds/skysedge
Summary: In darkness he remembers how it began.





	In These Eyes

 

_In darkness he remembers how it began. How naïve his heart had been, finding the sunlight beautiful, thinking that some of those beams shone for him._

 

 

                                                      

"You're fretting about it again."

Lucifer's voice is gentle. It's not an accusation but an observation. Sandalphon holds his breath and counts to ten but it doesn't ease the tightness in his chest.

"I just..."

His voice trails away in a soft breeze that sets the leaves around them to trembling. Lucifer doesn't need him to complete the sentence, merely smiles and raises his coffee cup back to his lips and Sandalphon tries not to stare, fails like always, and for a time it seems as if the shaded garden echoes with his stuttering heartbeat. It's always the same, every time they meet, all these silences that he can't measure and all these questions with no answers. Without a purpose to drive him, with nothing but these snatched encounters and soft words, he feels empty, light enough to drift away on the wind. Perhaps that would be best, perhaps there's a place for him out there in the sky, perhaps-

"Sandalphon."

"But I want to help you."

His voice leaves him in a breath barely above a whisper and he lowers his eyes shamefully to the floor. He's not sure if the murmured answer is real or imagined.

"You already do."

 

 

_In agony he holds his breath until the bittersweet memory passes. Those had been stolen moments, the exception rather than the rule. There had been so many rules to follow and one of them had been to stay still._

 

 

"Fifty-five."

The clasps of the restraints rattle against the metal table as his whole body succumbs to violent convulsions.

"Fifty-six."

The laboratory is less than fifty feet below the garden terrace but there's no sunlight down here, no conversation. His words have no value to these people; he learned that long ago.

"Fifty-seven."

Mouth open in a silent scream, his throat raw and voice long gone, Sandalphon can't remember what this experiment is for or if they ever told him. All he knows is that he's tired, he hurts, and it's getting difficult to breathe. Wrists and ankles secured to the table, his wings have been forced into manifestation and are stretched out and tied down each side of him, the feathers singed and bloody.

"Fifty-eight."

Another burst of energy slices into his overstimulated nerves through the metal rods they've plunged into him and his spine arches, his tongue lolls uselessly in his mouth and he can't ask them to stop.

 _What are you looking for?_ He wants to ask like always _. What use am I other than this?_

"Fifty-nine."

He knows that the experiment will end, he'll be dragged away and left crumpled in his empty room, his body will heal and it'll be as if this never happened, as if all the time he spends here is a myth. Then tomorrow, or the next day, it's never much longer that that-

"Sixty. Increase the potency."

- _then_ Lucifer will be in the garden and he'll smile and ask the same questions as always.

_"How are you?"_

_"Fine,"_ he'll say. _"The laboratory is the same as always."_

And then they'll talk of other things, of a world outside this spiral of pain, and he'll forget for a little while what darkness is.

'Sixty'? This is nothing. He'll take sixty thousand more if it means he can earn his purpose, if he can give something back for every moment of peace Lucifer has brought him.

"Sixty-one."

Blood fills his mouth as he bites his tongue with the next jolt but he remembers and wishes and tastes only the bitterness of coffee.

 

 

_In hindsight blood hadn’t tasted so bad. Better than the dust and stale air he swallows down now, shadows coloured with age old anger and hatred. He remembers that once he had felt something else. Once he had been curious about the world. Once he had believed he would get to experience it, both its beauty and cruelty._

 

 

“Think of it as an evolutionary dead-end.”

It’s another day and Sandalphon has been learning about birds. A species with four rainbow wings, nesting in a cliff far away that’s crumbling and falling to the bottom of the sky. He’s been trying to listen, really he has, but he aches from a long week of experiments and Lucifer’s eyes are so very bright.

“They can’t digest anything except the lichen specific to that cliff-face,” Lucifer is saying, coffee cup forgotten in front of him. “They are incapable of adapting.”

 _Incapable._ It’s a word that’s been creeping into his dreams. Incapable of success, incapable of finding a purpose, incapable of making one himself.

“So…” His voice is low, his lungs aching when he inhales. “What happens now?”

“They will become extinct.”

Lucifer’s expression doesn’t change. That not-quite smile on his lips. He’s neither warm nor cold but somewhere in between, a true balance, perfect objectivity. Sandalphon wishes he could be the same but he feels his brows knit in a frown and his fingers tighten on his cup.

“I wish I could see them,” he breathes. “Before they die out.”

“There’s some time left.”

He can’t bring himself to ask how long. Days, weeks, years, it doesn’t really matter. _If he can’t earn his place in the skies then he’ll never see them, these jewellike creatures that have so captivated Lucifer’s thoughts._ He wonders how much pain a creature like that could withstand without falling apart, how much strength is in a wing a mere fraction the size of his own, how many of them he’s worth, and it’s as he realises he’s envious of these doomed animals that Lucifer changes the subject. As if he knows. As if he has the answers.

“How are things going in the laboratory?”

“The same as always.”

 

 

  _Inevitably he remembers the day It had all started falling away from him. He had been a different person then, young, eager to please, and he had followed Lucifer’s footsteps in the hopes he’d have a chance just to be noticed, to have his existence validated. His first crime had been eavesdropping and he had paid dearly for it._

 

 

"You may keep him."

Lucifer's silence is deafening. He doesn’t question the truth of Lcuillius’s words, doesn’t condemn them, doesn’t ask for any sort of change. Out of sight, out of mind, Sandalphon watches as Lucifer follows his creator without speaking and he doesn’t need to see the primarch’s face to know his expression will be as blank as always, as if nothing has changed.

Sandalphon’s world shatters and there’s no one to hear a thing.

A replacement. A back-up. A _spare._ Outshone and rendered useless by the very light that he’s been following. It’s cruel, too cruel, and for the first time he feels real anger towards their creators, their _captors,_ and he has no idea what to do with the emotion. He clenches his fists at his sides, bites his lip, breathes heavily against the tightness in his chest. Nothing helps. Nothing ever will, he’s sure of it. Nothing _matters_ now, not his efforts or his dreams, not coffee in the garden, none of it.

Lucifer _may_ keep him. His continued existence is not a certainty. This miserable excuse for an existence might come to an end. That, at least, is a comfort.

 

 

 _In his more peaceful moments he longs for death. For release. How many more breaths can he take with hatred cutting his throat? How many more years can he merely exist, a creature of nothing but anger and resentment, a relic of a bygone age?_ _How many more times does he have to tell himself the same foolish story? It’s pointless, a life like this, a-_

 

 

Crossing the threshold into the walled garden becomes an insurmountable task. He tries, for days he tries, never getting any further than pressing the toe of one shoe to the stone and then backing away. He can see Lucifer waiting, a cup already set for him at the table, as if nothing has changed.

It’s a farce, the very idea of it makes bile rise in his throat, but god how he _wants_ to pretend he’s still blind and ignorant, to listen to Lucifer’s stories and bathe in his radiance. He wants to hope and strive again even if it had been painful. He wants to inhale without it catching on the edges of his broken heart. All it would take is one step, one cup of coffee, one forced smile.

But he can’t do it. It’s impossible to hide the bitterness in his voice now. He wonders if he even looks different, if the weight of knowledge has cast shadows on his face. He deserves to look haggard, to wither away. An unnecessary substitute with nothing to offer. An unwanted creation living on borrowed time. A waste of effort. A waste of air. A-

 

 

_-pathetic failed existence. In darkness and cold he remembers too clearly the days of wandering, of thinking, his heart blackening in his chest and the light in his eyes growing dark. Those had been the worst days, a limbo of heartache, during which he had avoided the only thing that had ever brought him peace. If he had been braver maybe things would have been different. Maybe he would never have dreamed of turning his hatred outwards and becoming a traitor._

 

 

He stumbles upon them by accident. Two lesser creations in hushed conversation, notes changing hands. They panic when he sees them but he can’t summon the energy to respond, just stares until something happens. The two trade glances, nod, and one speaks up.

“You hate it too, right? The experiments?”

They recognise him, then. He knows there are others treated like rats in the labs but he’s always been too self-involved to pay them any attention. He wonders if they know his name. He wonders if he ever wants to hear it spoken again.

“I hate everything,” he hears himself say. Their masters, their purpose, the experiments, the lies, everything, _everything_ except-

“Here.” A note is pressed into his hands. “Be there tonight. It’s time we fought back.”

They clap him on the shoulder and scurry away, looking frightened but pleased. He’s already forgotten their faces.

 

 

_In Pandemonium he’s sure many of them share the same story, those of them not lucky enough to die in pursuit of their cause. He still can’t remember their faces, none of them, because the rebellion hadn’t mattered to the deepest parts of him. It’s easy to realise that now that years have dulled his senses. Still, he thinks he would do it all again if the same situation arose. The emotions that keep him breathing now have always made him weak to persuasion._

 

 

He goes. He listens.

Something in him stirs at the prospect of violence, of vengeance, of freedom from a forced existence. He doesn’t mean to join the rebellion. It’s not a conscious decision, more of an inexorable slide. He keeps to the fringes, doesn’t raise his voice with the others, but soon the idea runs hot in his blood. His new allies give him the words he’s been lacking all this time.

Torture. Slavery. Manipulation. The right to live freely. The will to take it by force.

 It’s war he thinks of as they subject him to more experiments without purpose day after day and he longs to rip them limb from limb and show them just what he’s capable of when he’s not under their control. Lucifer’s substitute? No, he’ll prove he’s worth something all his own, and they’ll beg him on broken knees for forgiveness.

Only then will he be able to face his creator. He’ll set Lucifer free from his damned purpose and he’ll understand why it had to be this way. There’s still some time left. Perhaps he’ll see the birds after all.

 

 

_In moments of weakness he’s thought often of those birds. Species have been coming and going while he’s been locked away, an endless cycle of birth and death and adaptation. Nothing changes here. Like the laboratory, everything stays the same as always. Sometimes he wonders if the overseer of it all looks in on his cell from time to time, checking to see if he’s adapted, repented, changed. The idea is too painful, worse even than the memories._

 

 

When it comes the rebellion is a disaster.

Somehow he knows it will be from the first moment, from the way his pulsed jumps as he summons his swords and makes his first kill. They’re all too angry, too excited, too chaotic for any of this to work.

Caught up in the violence he finds it difficult to care, another purpose lost.  The stench of blood is heady and intoxicating. The fear in the eyes of those who had once mocked him is a sweet vindication and he’s drunk on their agony. The battlefield is muddled, blurred by his own crackling energy around him, bright edges bursting through flesh in explosions of black blood. They deserve it, all of them, elitists wielding their purposes like flags of honour, sheep following corrupt leadership blindly. All of them weak, all of them so easy to tear asunder. He cuts through their ranks with unbridled joy, free to be himself at last, and for a while he forgets everything but the rush.

_The primarchs!_

He hears it shouted all around him, in both fear and triumph, and he sees them descend upon his allies like wolves upon lambs. Gabriel. Uriel. Michael. Raphael. Beautiful and stern, they decimate the rebellion’s forces with seemingly no effort at all. On the fringes as always, he hangs in the air above a pile of corpses and watches as the last of his hopes are snatched away.

“Sandalphon.”

A voice from behind him. He turns and time slows to a crawl. He feels blood dripping from his fingers, none of it his own, and its easier to look down to them than to face what’s before him. He can no longer hear anything other than his own ragged breathing and the steady beating of six magnificent wings.

“Look at me, Sandalphon.”

He obeys and the sight brings hot tears to the corners of his eyes. Lucifer, beautiful and calm as always, expression unreadable. His swords hang in the air around him, far more glorious than anything Sandalphon could ever manage, and it’s now that he feels the weight of his existence more than ever before. A substitute, not needed, with ideas above his station, kept alive out of pity. He had wanted to set Lucifer free, had wanted to prove his worth. Like _this_? What nonsense.

He wants to speak but the words won’t come. Instead he raises his chin, haughty, holding onto the fake dignity that’s all he has left.

“I see,” Lucifer says. “I had hoped…”

It would have been nice to see Lucifer’s smile again. Even as he thinks this, Sandalphon forces himself to smirk, to play the villain he must seem, and his voice sounds nothing like his own when he speaks.

“Get on with it.”

“Why?”

Lucifer’s brow creases in a slight frown and it’s too much. Why? Why _what_? Why is he here with these criminals? Why has he been so distant? Why is he so eager for punishment? Why did it end up like this? The answer spears through his chest and knocks the wind from him. Eyes wide and lips parted, he falls to his knees before Lucifer, hands shaking against the earth.

“I…”

_Do you have any idea how much I love you?_

He can't say it. Pride, anger, fear, they all stay his tongue. He wishes it was simpler. He wishes he could rip his core from his chest and force it through Lucifer's ribs, force him to feel just how terrible tenderness can be. Yet even if he tried he knows that he couldn't , he's too weak, too fond, he'd tear himself open and offer the very heart of him with bloodied hands. But even then he knows Lucifer wouldn't take something so disgusting, so pointless, useful only in treachery.

_Do you have any idea how much this hurts?_

"Do it," he says instead. "Finish it."

It’s over. An evolutionary dead-end. He keeps his eyes closed as the swords fall.

 

 

_In darkness he had woken to a new kind of hell. Alive but alone. Without answers, without a sentence, without an end._

 

 

_Fifty-five._

The chains around his wrists rattle as he raises them and then shatter against the stone wall.

_Fifty-six._

Other cells are mere feet away but there's no sound down here, no company. His words have no value to anyone; he understands that fully now.

_Fifty-seven._

He loses his voice from shouting, hands raw from beating at the walls, and he can't stop thinking about why he’s here, reliving his last moments of freedom over and over. He knows that he deserves worse than this, an eternity of solitude will teach him nothing, Lucifer should have killed him and forgotten him completely. He curls his wings around himself and rocks for hours on end, breathing in rage and out humiliation.

 _Fifty-eight_.

 _What are you waiting for?_ He wants to ask. _What use am I alive?_

_Fifty-nine._

He breathes in and out, in and out, forgetting everything other than anger. Its embers burn just bright enough to keep his heart beating.

 _Sixty_.

He loses count of the years and still they march on and on and on.

 

 

_A deafening roar shakes the very foundations of his prison and suddenly there’s sky and air and sound and light. He thinks of the birds on the cliff-side, unable to change. He thinks of the rebellion, unable to succeed. He thinks of Lucifer, unable to kill him despite everything. And with the strength of thousands of years of anger, he spreads his wings and reaches for the skies that have never had a place for him_

_In defiance, he will tear them down._

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by 'A Night On The Town' by The Dear Hunter. o/ Not happy with how this turned out but I want it out of my wips already oof.


End file.
